BREAKDANCE FIGHTING WITH EVERYTHINGLORI.COM

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Glorious.

First of all, before you read this entry, make sure you're familiar with my GREY'S ANATOMY rant (which can be found a few posts below) and then head over to EverythingLori to read a recent response that my opinions generated.

While Lori makes some good points, she also makes some obvious observations that neither bolster her stance nor do much to detract from mine as intended. There's a little bit of overstatement in some of her exclamations, but I think it's more for aesthetic effect than it is actual belief...and clearly, I'm not one to shy away from exaggeration, so I'm not about to sit here so blackly and make claims against the kettle.

One of the things I want to point out immediately, though, is that everyone who read my initial post on the matter seems to have glossed over all of the glowing things I said about SEX AND THE CITY. Don't make the mistake of assuming that I in any way, shape or form put that show in the same category with GREY'S ANATOMY. It's not. SEX AND THE CITY was incredibly well-written and, as far as I can infer (being a male), insightful as to the manner in which it explored the female psyche and romance in general. GREY'S ANATOMY, on the other hand, sucks at everything in those realms. The only correlation I wished to draw between the two was that I don't want to hear about them. As good as SATC was and as talented as the writers appeared to be, the subject matter didn't interest me, so I didn't want to watch the show. And if I didn't want to watch the show - and that's exactly what I tell people when the topic is brought up - what makes you think I want to hear about why you liked it so much and, therefore, the reasons why my opinion is wrong?

I went back over that post three times to make sure I was clear about that. And I was clear about that. And yet somehow everyone who's "read" it doesn't seem to have actually "read" it. Strange, that.

Onto my thoughts on Lori's ruminations...

Look, for the most part I don't care what you ladies like. I'd love to be able to attach the most emotional parts of my soul to a generic ensemble drama. I would be infinitely happier if I wasn't hamstrung by this awful, discerning demon called "good taste". And I'm happy that Lori admits, for the general all of you, that you are manipulated by this material. Hey, if you get something out of it, that's the knees of the bee, and I'm being sincere when I say that you should take it and run with it.

But let's be honest here. A point was offered that there was an emotional connection made with the title character when her love interest dumps her for his wife in a certain scene from the show, and that this is somehow tantamount to the writers seeing into the very hearts of the female viewers.

I'll just go ahead and type through the act of throwing up in my mouth.

Look, every girl has been dumped, and most of the time it probably sucks. Many of you have been dumped by someone you cared about and it hurt. That's life, and I'm not knocking it. It's also something that has happened to just about everyone, and therefore it's not remarkable...so what's the big deal? You relate to this character on a level that makes some of you cry for hours because she got ditched? Hey, look, I don't like to shave, I'm a fan of drinking, and I've been on boats before, but that doesn't mean I relate to being a cop because I watched Colin Farrell in MIAMI VICE.

Just because someone took a common situation, applied general language to a fictional conversation and threw in some moody music doesn't mean this show is really that much like your life. Of course you relate to certain themes in the show. That's because the writers are writing not to create good drama, but to trick you into a false sense of validity because they've, miraculously, taken a situation that's applied to everyone and managed to melodramaticize it. And, congrats, you appear to buy it every time. The measuring stick for this show comes when you hear ten girls say how much they relate to the title character...and you realize that these ten girls are nothing alike, they just share common experiences like any other humans. It'd be the same thing if ten guys standing around in a bar all expressed the fact that they liked to play with boobs and then decided that, because of this astounding coincidence, they must be related.

But look, if you really want to believe that you have deep emotional and behavioral ties to Meredith Grey, I'm not here to tell you to stop doing so. By all means, grab your Kleenex every week and commiserate. But don't jump down my throat when I tell you that the show's writing sucks, because it sucks. And don't try to convert me. My overall point was that trying to talk to guys about either of these shows past the most basic stages is a waste of your f*cking time. Yes - almost every guy. It's not that we don't care about you, probably, but that we just don't care an iota about the drivel on TV that turns you into a babbling mouth-breather. Damn kids, I'm only trying to help here, and my charitable efforts are met with nothing but vitriol.

Yes, just so I can blatantly state what you're all going to harp on anyway, women are the people who keep most of the junk alive. Programs like GA along with serials like DAYS OF OUR LIVES and crap romantic comedies like FAILURE TO LAUNCH. I'm not blaming you for your poor choices in scripted fiction and I'm not telling you to stop watching. I'm just saying I don't want you to think that it's all somehow relevant or artistically sound just because it's popular, and I don't want you to think that I have any reason, as a logical, cognitive mammal, to agree with you.

I don't think Lori much cares for my writing - tone, subject matter, or both - and that's perfectly OK, since I'm guessing most people don't. Judging by my hit counter I'm irrelevant on a staggering scale, and Lori's readership dwarfs mine on an exponential level, I'm willing to bet. But she fired off a brief email to alert me to her latest post and, at the very beginning, included a thinly-veiled dig that said, "You didn't get the best response from my readers." It was followed by a quoted excerpt from one of - what I can only assume represents a veritable plethora of - her readers. It explained that they didn't like my writing and couldn't get through it. And that I seemed angry.

Now I certainly don't think it was meant to be insulting, but more of a gentle dig like, "That's right, tough guy. You're not as topical as you think, are you?" However, I submit this to you, my seven readers who come here each day with loyalty in your hearts: nothing could have made me happier. The way I figure it, if I'm laboring to make this wordsmything a career and I'm garnering lackadaisical apathy from fans of GREY'S ANATOMY...

I'm on the dead-right f*cking track. And I must be a better writer than I ever hoped!